About Us

Gillespie Macandrew LLP is an independent Scottish law firm with offices in Edinburgh, Glasgow and Perth.  We provide expert legal advice to businesses and individuals and their families on a wide range of legal and tax matters and are leading advisors to the rural, energy, charity and property sectors

At Gillespie Macandrew we custom design our advice around our clients.

Our ESG commitment

ESG – Environmental, Social and Governance – underpins everything we do at Gillespie Macandrew.

We recognise the value our published priorities and goals offer to our clients, everyone at the firm and the wider communities in which we work.

Across every aspect of our work, our commitment to ESG is considered, planned out and kept under review. It forms part of our decision making in relation to our business practices, people management and development, and culture, as well as how we deliver our services and communicate both internally and externally. Most importantly, it drives the standards we and others hold us to, as well as the reporting we do.

For us, ESG means going beyond just compliance to help shape the sort of world we all want for the future.

Our key, overarching ESG priorities for action in 2023/24 are broken down under each area:

Environmental

We have committed to being a Net Zero organisation by 2035. Reducing our environmental impact is key to our ESG action plan. We plan to do this by:

• Reducing the effects of our operations on the environment in relation to climate change, energy usage and pollution.
• Promoting and deploying environmentally responsible and sustainable business practices throughout our organisation.
• Using education, engagement and accountability activities to provide opportunities for our staff to be part of a collective sustainability effort.

Social

We believe that responsible and sustainable business practices in relation to our people and communities are a core part of our ESG responsibility. We have a long and proud history of work in this area and will build on this by:

• Prioritising wellbeing by cultivating and promoting an inclusive and supportive culture throughout our organisation.
• Helping our people progress and thrive in their roles, by making sure they have the correct tools, training and organisational support.
• Placing integrity, accountability, equal opportunities and teamwork at the heart of our business success criteria, and in our recruitment and onboarding practices.
• Continuing to support the wider communities in which we work, through charitable activities.

Governance

We want to create an organisation that encourages, tracks and values all contributions to achieving our ESG objectives. We will do this by:

• Creating a culture of transparency and accountability in our ESG, by defining our overall ESG performance targets with built-in milestones and regular reviews.
• Ensuring our policies and procedures reflect our overall ambitions as a responsible and ethical business.
• Providing clear communication to our staff, to ensure they understand how they can contribute to achieving organisational ESG-objectives and are motivated to do this.
• Ensuring our decision-making in all areas is aligned with our overall ESG strategy.
• Prioritising working with clients, suppliers and other third parties that share the same commitment to these ESG values.

United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs)

We recognised the value the UN Sustainable Development Goals offer in helping us to focus our ESG activities.

The United Nations set out the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in 2015. These are a set of 17 objectives aimed at eradicating poverty, conserving the environment, and achieving peace and wellbeing for everyone by the year 2030. These goals are interconnected, acknowledging that progress in one area influences others. The focus is on a balanced approach that considers social, economic, and environmental factors.

We have chosen four UN Sustainable Development Goals to focus on in 2023/24, which we feel best reflect and align with our ESG ambitions. By taking the spirit of each of these SDGs we’re able to better understand the impact of our ESG activities, in a global context, as well as how we, as a business, are contributing to achieving them.

The goals we have chosen to focus on are:

GOAL 8: Decent work and economic growth

GOAL 10: Reduced inequalities

GOAL 13: Climate action

GOAL 17: Partnerships for the goals

Charities Committee

We have a long and proud history of community involvement and support a variety of causes through community projects and associations.  Each year, we donate 1% of our pre-tax profits to our charity partners, currently Alzheimer Scotland and the Edinburgh Children’s Hospital Charity, and the total donated over the past 8 years is over £258,000.  In addition, each member of staff is given a paid day off each year to volunteer to support local causes and the firm also supports charities through pro bono work at a strategic and operational level.

International Network

Lexwork International is a trusted referral network consisting of high-quality independent law firms across the Americas, Europe and Asia.  The firm has been a member since 1995 and has significant experience of co-ordinating international projects and transactions.